Land Rover DC100 Concept Official Photos and Info

You thought reinventing the Beetle or Mini was tough? Try the Defender.

Land Rover will need to make use of its renowned off-road prowess to extract itself from the dilemma on which it’s now metaphorically high-centered. The company’s core product, the Defender, is due for replacement in 2015, but its archetypical appearance has historically evolved at a glacial rate. Land Rover’s boffins are taking a first stab at reinterpreting Britain’s Wrangler with the DC100 concept you see here, but design director Gerry McGovern emphasizes that this is not a “production-ready” concept—it’s not even close. Rather, it is the “beginning of a four-year journey to design a relevant Defender for the 21st century.” Considering that the Land Rover Defender and its three predecessors, the Series I, II, and III, weren’t so much styled as they were formed from molten SAS commandos, McGovern’s task is taller than Mount Elbrus.

The concept is creative to be sure. Most important, the Defender’s classic boxy shape remains, as do the vertical door handles and the hood that sits higher than the flat-topped fenders. The vents on said fenders, however, are totally modern—and a bit out of keeping with the Defender’s minimalist philosophy—and the front clip blends old and new by placing classic round headlamps in a swept, contoured fascia. The massive wheels appear to have been borrowed from Temple Beth Israel, as they sport a six-pointed star pattern, while the low-profile rubber reminds of us of most Rovers’ roles as tools for suburban posturing but seems ill-suited for the LR that most frequently gets dirty.

Whatever Land Rover decides for the final vehicle’s shape, you can expect it to ride on a derivation of the company’s current Land Rover LR4 platform—probably with complexity removed and toughness added. The go-to engine is likely to be the 2.2-liter four-cylinder turbo-diesel recently introduced in the European Jaguar XF, where it produces 187 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque. We anticipate that there will be an optional gas-fired engine as well, which could be anything from a borrowed four-banger to the company’s complex 5.0-liter V-8 to an upcoming, all-new V-6.

The outgoing Land Rover Defender debuted in 1982, landed in the U.S. in 1992, and then promptly disappeared in 1997 upon expiration of the company’s free pass for not having the federally mandated dual airbags. Although that truck drew heavily on the Series III it replaced—even the door panels were the same, initially—the Defender has, historically, evolved under the sheetmetal. In reflecting on the Land Rover Series trucks in 1979, Car and Driver’s L.J.K. Setright could have been writing the epitaph for the current Defender: “The only good analogy might be found in the Volkswagen Beetle: here, too, the basic shape, the basic concept, remained unaltered and inviolable, despite the fact that every component (bar a couple of humdrum nuts and bolts) had been altered since the first vehicle went into production.”

Just as Volkswagen completely reimagined the Beetle nearly 20 years later as a modern product—and, subsequently, Mini did the Cooper hatchback and Fiat the 500—Land Rover might find its greatest success building a new Defender that’s thoroughly modern underneath, and merely skinned like the boxy behemoth loyalists expect. But if the truck isn’t truly robust, and can’t be repaired by bush mechanics in Sub-Saharan Africa, can it be a proper Defender? We’ll have to wait on McGovern and Land Rover for an answer.